Hoodwinked, Bamboozled and Buffaloed!

Kahuna woke me Saturday morning with the promise of an adventure and a chance to take pictures I was excited. Usually I just ride around with my camera and yell “STOP” when I want to take pictures. I have gotten some wonderful shots this way. Someday I’m going to shell out the money and get Photoshop so I can process my pictures. Until then they will just have to be what I compose in my camera.

Kahuna tells me to get ready and me being the ever obedient wife went and dressed in my cute jeans with an even cuter T-shirt and my favorite hiking boots. You see I’m not athletic or even outdoorsy but if I dress like I am then I feel like I am. It’s like I’ve been telling you people it’s all perception. I gather my camera and my gear and head out to the SUV. “Honey, we are going to take the Green Hornet today” Kahuna instructed. The Green Hornet is an old forestry truck that is his ‘work’ truck. It is rough and rugged and has four wheel drive. Oh goody I thought as I climbed in the seat next to him, we must be going into the rough. Maybe I can get a picture of a mountain lion or a bear. This of course would be done from the comfort and safety of the cab of the Green Hornet.

We left our humble abode and headed towards what I was thinking would be the mountain. Instead he pulled up in front of The Building and backed up to what I call the debris trailer. It is really just a little trailer he pulls behind his truck with which he hauls construction materials. This isn’t his job nor is it even anything that he remotely gets paid to do; he in fact actually pays people to do this. He just can’t sit still on a job and do paperwork. He is a hands on type guy. He attached the trailer to the truck leaving me a bit confused. I didn’t really think about it though since he sometimes just has to move it to a different spot. He does this so that it is easier for the workers to retrieve or get rid of material.

He jumped in the seat and looked at me and said “Are you ready?” Well of course I was ready. I had on my cute little hiking boots and my stylish shirt and my very best jeans of course I was ready. He fired up the Green Hornet and drove off down the road. I sat fiddling with the settings on my camera preparing myself for whatever might catch my eye. He turned off the main thoroughfare onto a road which we had never been down before. My interest piqued and I readied my camera. Then I saw it the first signs of our adventure.

We had arrived, not as I had imagined into the wild but at the dump. Yes this was my adventure.

We drove up the ever growing mountain of garbage and into the vast wilderness of trash. I was amazed at the number of people who like us had decided to visit the receptacle of waste.

We left the dump then headed back to the job site to drop off the trailer. Here again I thought was when my adventure would begin. Once again I was tricked. I was fooled. Upon arrival at the construction site Kahuna hoodwinked me. He had buffaloed me into thinking this was an excursion when in truth it was work. I was appalled. Doesn’t he know I’m the Queen of Slackassedness? Doesn’t he know that my job is to loll about looking cute? How did he do this you ask? He asked my opinion on planting the eleventy billion plants he had purchased for landscape.

He opened my door and helped me out of the truck. He walked me to the barren area around the building and said “What do you think we should place here?” Now I have to admit I am horrible at growing things. My plants will be completely healthy one day and the next they will wither and die. My only savior is that the rabbits eat them before they die. I had a beautiful pot full of herbs. They had actually begun to grow. I went to bed and the next morning there was nothing left, not even nubs. The jack rabbits had eaten everything except for the pot. I digress.

Nurse Meme was a wonderful gardener and I often would spend hours in her garden digging briars and planting plants. This in no way made me an expert but it did give me some knowledge of how to plant plants just not how to keep them alive. I began picking up plants and placing them according to their need of sunshine and the aesthetic appeal. I did this for seven hours. I also got down in the dirt and set them in the holes which Kahuna had dug as I had placed the plants. Thank God the sun finally set and we were forced to go home and clean up.

That was my big adventure. I came home covered in mud and sore from head to toe.

I feel like I just spent 6 weeks at the Biggest Loser’s weight loss camp. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go catch up on my lolling about before Kahuna comes and takes me on another adventure.

Spanx is Just a Girdle on Crack

Over the last several years I have become more, um, meaty. I was always way to skinny. Everyone always urged me to eat more or encouraged me to have one more piece of cake. I was made fun of for being skinny. Friends and family would say ‘Don’t stand sideways or we can’t see you. You better jump around in the shower or you’ll go down the drain’ and other things to stress my thinness. I would laugh and eat my way into the next day knowing I would never suffer from being over weight.

I went to sleep one night around my forty-fifth birthday a skinny middle aged woman. I woke up a fat middle aged woman. I had gained thirty pounds overnight. My thighs touched. That had never happened in my life. I had fat thighs. Not only did I have fat thighs I had back fat too. Ok come on you know what I’m talking about that flap of fat the bulges around your bra in the back. Oh and don’t get me started about ankle wrinkles. Good God someone get me the Rowenta iron I’m all wrinkled!

I started this diatribe to tell you about my grandmother. Yes this is my Nanny who jumped into the #5 washtub with me when a rattlesnake decided to join us for a bath. The woman who married my grandfather and then believed he was staying in a swank hotel when he was in fact living in a tent on the courthouse lawn looking for work. Ah, the Great Depression, the good old days. Again, I digress.

Nanny had what we call a matronly figure. You know she was a tad thick of thigh and a bit bulging in the all the wrong bulgy places. She would try to squeeze everything in with the aid of a girdle. Now for you youngins who have never sqoze your skinny little butts into a girdle let me just say it’s Spanx on crack. They were made of rubber. RUBBER people. I want you to remember this as I tell my story.

Nanny got ready for church in her best blue suit and dotted her cheeks with some rouge. She combed her hair into place and blotted her lipstick on a Kleenex she spritzed on her perfume and double checked her appearance in the mirror. Then she slipped a handkerchief in her pocket book and headed out the door. They arrived at church in time to attend their adult Sunday school lesson. Then it was time for church.

Nanny bid farewell to her family and went to sit in the choir loft with the rest of the Sunday morning chorus. They sang "The Old Rugged Cross" and then went into a resounding chorus of "Let's All Gather at the River". It was a fairly warm morning in the little church. There wasn’t a lot of breeze blowing through the open door where every so often Deacon Williams would get up and spit his tobacco juice out. Mrs. Moore was trying desperately to keep Mr. Moore from snoring through the service and the children were fidgeting in their seats. Finally the preacher had pounded the pulpit for the last time in his sermon. He had spoken of fire and brimstone and the burning flames of hell and it was time for the invocation prayer. The little church house fell silent. Then there was a sound which echoed through the acoustics of the building which sounding like a fire cracker. Men who had been in war ducked, women who had young boys cut an evil eye toward their offspring and the preacher grabbed both sides of the dais awaiting the rapture. “Oh my goodness” came the songstress voice of Nanny. She scurried out of the choir loft and ran embarrassed to the Ladies room.

You see the pop that resonated through out the church that morning was not an errant fire cracker or even a shot. It wasn't even as the preacher feared Jesus coming back to take his congregation away. No it was just Nanny having a blow out on her girdle.

Little Gladys Life of Crime Part II

I started this story Wednesday on this post Little Gladys Life of Crime. If you want to catch up go on over and read it. Then you can finish the story here. Also thanks to all of you who emailed me and commented that you wanted the rest of the story. This has been one of those that isn't exactly funny but I had to get it out. I have never really talked to anyone about this other than some of my family. So I'm sharing it with the rest of you here.

Part II

Gladys sat in her room. She sat looking at her hands and thinking. Why had she gone on that ride? She knew it was wrong. She felt that they were destined to get caught. Why was her best friend pressuring her more and more into doing things they both knew was wrong? She didn’t understand. Just that summer they had still been playing Barbie and riding their bicycles to the store. Then the next thing she knew she was a criminal. A C*R*M*I*N*A*L. What was she thinking? Nope six months of grounding wasn’t enough. She was going to march over the Mr. and Mrs. O’Bar’s house and apologize. She would apologize for being wrong. She would apologize for being gullible and most of all she would apologize for not standing up to Karen and waking her mom and dad up when she couldn’t stop her. She would beg for forgiveness and then she was going on the straight and narrow. She decided first thing in the morning she would go over there and talk to them. She just wanted to sleep and she wanted not to feel so bad about herself.

She crawled under the covers long before the sun went down. Sometime around midnight she heard her name being called. She thought she was dreaming but her eyes were open. She heard it again and she walked to the big bay window in her bedroom. There knocking on the window was Karen. “Karen! What are you doing here” Gladys whispered. “I’m grounded from you. What are you doing out of your house?” Karen whispered back “I’m running away. Get your stuff and come with me.” Gladys sat there mouth agape. “What? Why? That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” Gladys whispered back. “No it’s not. My parents are so mean. They told me I was grounded for two weeks for the car thing. They are so lame. I’m going to go live on my own” Karen snapped back.

Gladys sat there talking to her friend through the screen thinking it must all be a dream. She listened to Karen go on and on about how mean her parents were and how she didn’t want to live there anymore. “I’m not going with you. Karen, YOU’RE not going either” Gladys stated remembering her new resolve. “I am going to go call your parents right now. You have a choice, you can either go home or go to the back door and I’ll let you in the house. One way or the other I’m calling your parents.” Karen looked at Gladys disdain in her eyes and said “You big baby. One little run-in with the cops and your ready to just crawl in a hole. Well I’m not. I’m leaving.” Gladys watched as her ex-best friend ran out of the yard and into the night. Gladys sat there for just a minute then ran into the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall next to the sink. “Mrs. O’Bar I am so sorry it is so late. Yes ma’am I know it’s after midnight. Mrs. O’Bar, Karen just left here. She said she is running away from home. No ma’am she didn’t say where she was going but she ran out of my yard and headed toward 10th street. No ma’am she didn’t say anything else. Yes ma’am I’ll call you if I hear from her again.”

Gladys tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. She felt somehow responsible. She felt guilty and ashamed. Why was her friend doing this? She didn’t know and what’s worse her shame and fear kept her from talking to anyone. She once again felt terribly alone. She hoped and prayed her friend’s parents would find her but she also knew she couldn’t continue her friendship.
Karen did run away that night. Her parents found her and brought her home. This time she wasn’t just grounded for a couple of weeks. It was worse, much worse, she was grounded for months. This did not stop her rebellion.

Gladys would see Karen in the hall at school. She would smile but Karen would look away or bump into her and laugh. She became someone different. She became a bully and one of the “stoner” kids. Then one day Gladys confronted Karen in the hallway between classes. “Karen, I don’t know why you are so mad at me. I tried to help you. I don’t want us to be enemies” Gladys stammered. Karen narrowed her eyes and then said “Gladys, you’re a narc and a whimp. You have become a goody-two-shoes that is I why I don’t want to be your friend anymore. It wouldn’t matter what I did you would rat me out. I don’t hang out with rats.”
In that moment Gladys knew her and Karen would never be friends again. She knew that Karen had taken her own path and that the two would never stay up all night whispering and singing along with David Cassidy. She knew they wouldn’t ride bikes or walk to the creek together. Gladys knew it was time to leave those days behind. It made her sad and it made her angry. Most of all it made her feel very much alone.

Then right before summer break Gladys noticed that she didn’t see Karen anymore. They lived on the same block and would often pass one another on their way to or from school, but Gladys didn’t see her anywhere. She wondered what had happened to her ex-best friend and hoped that it wasn’t bad.

The rumor started circulating around school that Karen had run away. Some said she had run away with an older boy others said she just left in the middle of the night one night. Gladys took all this information in and wondered what would have happened if they had remained friends. She wondered if she could have influenced her friend to move in a different direction. She wondered if Karen would have eventually turned back in to the girl that befriended Gladys when she first moved to the neighborhood. Unfortunately she never changed back into that fun Barbie playing bicycle riding little girl. She never got to drive her Mom’s Super Charger or attend our Junior High School homecoming. She never got to go through the slow process of growing up. She grew up fast and hard on the streets. Gladys on the other hand was scared straight.

The last time Gladys saw Karen was long after high school. She didn’t recognize the haggard life worn woman that approached her. She was much older than her years and not any wiser. She learned that once Karen left she spent a good part of her years living in the train yards in Fort Worth. Then at the ripe old age of fifteen she married an older man and started having babies. She was entrenched in the drug life by the time she was seventeen and already divorced. Gladys shocked at the condition of her one time playmate asked if there was anything she could do for her old friend. Karen looked at Gladys with a tear in her eye and said “no, but thank you. You see you tried years ago and I didn’t listen to you. I thought you were selfish and stupid. Now, I wish I would have listened.” They two bid each other farewell to go on and live their different lives.

Random Thoughts by Gladys 4-7-09

It's Friday again, already. It is also the Day that Mrs. 4444 does Friday Fragments. So go on over to Half Past Kissing Time and link on up.

Did you know there are Equine Gangs?

What are the chemical properties of Mother’s spit that makes it not only an industrial strength face cleaner, a hair styling product and a glass cleaner?

Why is it when you are traveling have to go to the bathroom really bad there either isn’t one for miles or if you do find one it is occupied?

Who invented the button on the T.V. remote that hypnotizes men at the exact same time the television turns on? Unless of course it’s on Lifetime?

Why is it when an American visits a foreign country where they don’t speak the language they start speaking really slow and loud, but when foreigners who visit America who don’t speak English they speak really soft and fast?

Why is it when you call customer service they make you enter your account number then when you get a person on the line they ask you for it again?

Why do people say “I need to gather my wits about me”? Did they escape?

El Camino – car or truck? You decide.

***Stay tuned...I'll post the rest of "Life Of Crime" later today.

Don't forget it's Virtual Girls Night out over At Ann Again and Again. Go mix yourself an adult beverage and join in the fun.